Except that, according to him, the wars came about because Elizabeth I died without an heir.

I think I need new contacts, because I just read that as "because Elizabeth I dyed her hair."

Gonna bring up political stuff here, but strictly for background, so let's be good e-hellions and not turn this into a political debate:

Remember when we Americans were supposed to be mad at the French because they didn't support the war in Iraq? It went so far as people renaming a certain popular side dish "Freedom Fries."

I worked at a fast food restaurant when the whole 'freedom fries' thing was going on and people would chew me up one way and down the other when I called them french fries.I had one guy that made me go get a manager b/c when I read his order back to him I called them their real name. I wanted to tell him that America was the last country to join most fights, but no one ever says anything about that.

My Captain Know It All story was from high school history class. We were learning about all the different types of governments and was on Communism. My teacher kept interchanging Communism and Anarchy and when I corrected him, he blew his top on me and tried to tell me that they were the same thing. I disagreed with him and even pointed to several examples in our textbook, but he refused to let me speak. In another class he kept calling Karl Marx an anarchist and when I responded, "But didn't he write The Communist Manifesto?" I seriously thought he was going to kick me out of class. "They're the same thing!" Even the other students were laughing at me and telling me how wrong I was.I get that they're similar, but they are NOT the same thing!

I'm wondering if this counts. In his defense, it might've been a little rude of the three of us, but still, this guy was out there.

We, my BF, sissie, and I, sat down with one of my acquittance at McDonald's some many moons ago. We're not the best of friends, but we both showed up at the restaurant and it would've been awkward to act like he wasn't there, so we just ate together.

This guy is a self-proclaimed survivor type thinker. He got onto a discussion of if the nearby military base, and asked all of us what would happen if a mutagen escaped the Base and entered town and made us into Zombies.

Yes, I know, this might be an interesting topic to some. However, the way he told it, he sounded dead serious. I mean, not theory, dead frikkin serious. We tried to talk him into saying that the Base doesn't handle bio weapons (they are not classed to), but he said that's what the government wants us to think.

So the guy spends most of the conversation trying to talk us into how to survive a zombie invasion and what if the entire town were infected by whatever the Base has, and he wants evidence that they don't have it.

Maybe we were rude by not playing along, but he caught us so off guard it was... huh. Not normal, by any means!

This guy is a self-proclaimed survivor type thinker. He got onto a discussion of if the nearby military base, and asked all of us what would happen if a mutagen escaped the Base and entered town and made us into Zombies.

He's a conspiracy theorist. You can't reason with them at all, because whatever facts you have Are Wrong and The Government is Surpressing The Truth. Even if you're correcting their knowledge on something you'd consider trivial, such as telling them that potatoes originated in the Andes, not Ireland, well, That's What They Want You to Think! Yes, I have worked with more than a few.

My MILs partner is the worst kind of know-it-all. If someone else is telling a tale he will sit and nod vigorously, saying uh-huh and yes, loudly through-out, with an "I've heard this before" air.

He cannot tolerate stories that are about the times we had before he was on the scene (you know those family stories that go round every time the family gets together), so to deal with this, he tells the story first and as though he were there himself.

If we discuss any current issues that require acquired knowledge, he says "yes thats right" loudly and firmly as a response and will look around the table for people to acknowledge him as the "knower of all things".

She also fancies herself a medical expert though she has no training or even higher education in the matter, Mr Cellardoor and I like to say she got her PHD from the esteemed institutions of ER re-runs, and the You (a general women's magazine in South Africa.)

Argh. I hate it when YOU (the magazine) run any kind of "medical" or "scientific" article. Odds are they're going to get something wrong. <bangs head against wall>

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It's best to love your family as you would a Siberian Tiger - from a distance, preferably separated by bars . -- Pearls Before Swine (16-May-2009)

My favorite know-it-alls are the ones who try to tell me that my learning disabilities are due to red food coloring or sugar. Because sugar makes me reverse letters and numbers and red food dye is responsible for bad handwriting. When I ask for sources, I get referred to sketchy websites. When I try to explain about genetics (two uncles and one aunt possibly have LDs), I am ignored. I now know to bean-dip.

That reminds me of someone who claimed to be an expert in child education and learning difficulties who ran afoul of my mum when I was about 6. ChildExpert told my mum that she was treating a five year oldchild who had difficulty reading apparently because the child hadn't crawled enough when she was a baby. ChildExpert had the child crawl around the table at home repeatedly and apparently this helped her reading skills . My mum piped up that I had never crawled as a child, just sort of gone from sitting to walking in a very short period.

Aha! ChildExpert leapt onto this and said "Oh, she must be a terrible reader then!". My mum politely pointed out that actually I had the highest reading age of all the children in my class and was reading several years above my actual age. ChildExpert was rather put out by that, and insisted I must have some reading problems that my mum was unaware of.

I should mention I was sitting between the two of them during this conversation, merrily reading a Hardy Boys book with no obvious trouble.

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It's best to love your family as you would a Siberian Tiger - from a distance, preferably separated by bars . -- Pearls Before Swine (16-May-2009)

I was about eight (almost nine), and I was playing Mary in my school nativity. A couple of the mums (not mine) were in charge of costuming. Usually this was a very simple 'cut up sheets/pillowcases, tie them with cord or ribbon' job. One of the mums was determined to make it a bit more professional that year. She got all these patterns and made robes for all the shepherds and kings, dresses for the angels, that sort of thing.

Then it came to my costume. For some reason I didn't understand, she insisted that, despite the fact that Mary is wearing blue in pretty much every painting/film ever, I would be wearing pink. With a yellow cloak. And a gold head band.

When the other mum complained, saying that no one would know who I was meant to be if I wasn't in blue, she argued that all these sources had it wrong, and in the bible, Mary wore pink and yellow. If I remember correctly though, she started to backpedal when the other mum asked her to prove it.

What really grills my cheese is when a person will insist something they say is correct, but when you contradict them they say, "I want EVIDENCE!! Where is your EVIDENCE!!!" like you're supposed to whip out a book containing that info right there and then and show them.

My FBIL (the communications major) did that to me (the natural science major) talking about science once. He said that scientists put too much stock in these theories and they just don't make sense to him. I said something along the lines of "Science isn't about thinking of something and seeing if it makes sense after the fact. You look at the evidence you have, form a hypothesis, test it, and then it is evaluated by other scientists. That gets repeated over and over. It is a cycle that builds on itself and corrects itself." He stood up staigher and said "Cite your source" like he thought I made it up.

Me in my head: You want me to cite the entire foundation of my field? I guess every valid science book or journal article ever?? In reality I realized it was going norwhere and just changed the subject. It was too painful.

How about every single introduction to science book ever produced?

That is just too incredibly stupid to be indulged.

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Just because someone is offended that does not mean they are in the right.

She also fancies herself a medical expert though she has no training or even higher education in the matter, Mr Cellardoor and I like to say she got her PHD from the esteemed institutions of ER re-runs, and the You (a general women's magazine in South Africa.)

Awesome! We have the same MIL! It's gotten so bad that I've (secretly) threatened to buy her a new copy of Physician's Desk Reference just so she can learn new symptoms. (We're getting tired of the same old ones.)

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"I am the laziest person on Earth. I want to learn to photosynthesize so I can buy a sun lamp and survive without getting out of bed." M-theory 11/23/10

My mother likes to act like she is a parenting expert and also a doctor. But she is not either, and the only post high education she has was a bookkeeping certificate then later some training as a hospital ward clerk in the late 1960's/early 1970's.

She is one of those types who believes most anything she sees on tv shows like Supernanny, Nanny 911, and Dr Phil for the parenting. For the medical things, anything she reads in the newspaper, a magazine or sees on a tv show like the Doctors or Dr. Oz, or the medical segments on morning tv shows like Good Morning America.

I am running out of bean dip with her as she tries to act like a doctor regarding my weight issues. As soon as she sees something on tv or reads about it, I get a call or even a note thing.

I am sure she does the same with my sister with how she raises her kids. I haven't heard all that much from my sister, but I do know from my sister's past complaints where my mother has resorted to writing 4 page notes on both sides of the paper criticizing her habits. My mother is no mother of the year, she wasn't abusive physically but her words stung as bad growing up.

I may have posted this before. Some guy at college was hitting on me and trying to impress me via complaining about the difficult exam he had coming up. The hard part was going to be the bit on menstruation. I made a remark about having a gender advantage on that subject and he looked confused, until I explained. Then he patiently explained to the dim-witted blond that menstruation was a subject involving geometric measurement and that women suffered from mensuration each month. I argued with him for a few minutes and he became more and more patronising, so I left, hoping fervently that the exam question was worded "Describe mensuration, in detail".

To be fair, he makes a point...though not quite correctly. Menstruation is about physics, aerodynamics and geometry. As is "How much force will it take for me the throw this man through that wall and leave his femurs bent into obtuse angles?"

Then topography enters the subject, as in "What's the shortest distance between me and the nearest pint of Ben and Jerry's?"